Judge Denies Restraining Order To Prevent Demotion Of Detention Officers
Update:
Judge Sue Kurita denied a temporary restraining order that would have stopped the county from eliminating sergeant’s positions at the detention center. Friday morning, the El Paso County Sheriff’s Officer’s Association sued the county to prevent the lmination of 22 sergeants’ positions at the jail. The Association said demoting these positions violates wage provisions in their contract.
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A plan to save the county money will not include eliminating detention office sergeants jobs, El Paso County Sheriff Richard Wiles told ABC-7.
Wiles said that 22 detention office sergeants at the Downtown Jail and East Side annex – the ones most recently promoted – will be demoted to lower level positions, saving the county money.
He also said the move will not impact the safety of the community or inside the jails.
The work load and responsibilities will have to be redistributed, which Wiles said will be difficult on his officers and could lead to employee retention issues.
“This is not a good thing. It’s not something I want. It’s definitely going to impact this organization in a negative way. What’s going to happen is there’s going to be some management and supervision issues that I think are going to be difficult to overcome but we understand the county’s in a very difficult position and there’s nothing I can do. We just have to work with the county to get through these difficult times,” said Wiles.
El Paso County Commissioner Dan Haggerty, who suggested the positions be eliminated, said there’s just no other solution.
“My alternative is to raise taxes and I have no intentions of doing that. I really feel we can get this done within the confines of the budget we have,” Haggerty said.
The El Paso County Sheriff’s Officers Association is due for a contracted raise of up to 8 percent.
Eliminating the jail sergeants’ positions might be the only way to pay for that raise and still cut the needed $1.8 million from the sheriff’s office budget.
